Archive for April, 2011

I don’t know why I find this so blasted fascinating. I love bananas and I love dolphins, but never did I imagine the two would merge into some artsy, potassium-rich treat! Makes me wonder what other fruit-cetacean hybrids may exist. Watermelon whales? Pineapple porpoises? Crabapple orcas? Kiwi narwhals? The mind boggles! And only your greengrocer – and Jacques Cousteau – know for sure.

I mean, gee, try as I might, I just cannot seem to get Maxine interested in what I do. I try to make my work at the lab sound exciting, intriguing, sensational. But, no. SHE wants to be a glamorous pop star! ALL she talks about is how wonderful Uncle Elton is. “My, isn’t he flashy!” “Wow, look at that eccentric outfit!” “He gets to hang around with Lady Gaga and Matthew Morrison!” Sigh. Like a Nobel Prize and a Cable Ace Award mean nothing!

But, I suppose we have no real control over what paths our offspring walk down. Sure, I’d like for her to become the next Madame Curie (except for the dying of radiation bit) but I should just be happy that she’s happy.

So, Keebler cookies are made by elves, right? Are they really? Made BY elves – or made OF elves? Just seems like if they ran out of ingredients in that hollow tree of theirs they could shove one of the interns into the oven and no one would be the wiser. It’s not like there’s a missing persons bureau for fictitious creatures. Hell, Ernie could be Sweeney Todding his entire diminutive race into E.L. Fudges and Pecan Sandies and no one would know it! Oh my stars … Keebler is people! Tiny People!

Well, a great holiday has come and gone here in my household! Seriously great. And I’m not just saying that because I get to drink Schnapps again after giving it up for Lent. Nope, here at the MacMillan abode, it’s a non-stop party; especially since due to the nature of our respective upbringings we celebrate a blended holiday we like to call Paas-over (and lemme tell you – in case you’ve never tried – it’s not easy to dye a matzah).

But things are settling down now. The kids, Jake and Maxine, have pretty much finished their charoset bunnies and kosher peeps and Moira has begun work on her special parsley-salt water egg salad, which will be the centerpiece of most lunches for the next few weeks.

And me? My final job before I hit the hay is to see if I can remember where I hid all the gefilte fish we couldn’t find during the hunt earlier today…

Peter Rabbit – The rebel. Sure, his sisters were the good little bunnies and they got bread & milk & blackberries for supper, but Peter disobeyed and got all up in MacGregor’s garden and had himself an adventure!

The Playboy Bunny – The symbol for all that is sexy. Can you dig it?

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python & the Holy Grail – Ferociousness incarnate! I laughed so hard first time I saw that scene I fell off the sofa and had an asthma attack.

Harvey – Technically, a Pooka, but Jimmy Stewart gives him gravitas.

The Cadbury Bunny – Okay, he’s a corporate shill when you get right down to it, but we’ve seen the auditions – no one else can do it! And those eggs are just so damn tasty!

Jessica Rabbit – She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way.

Max from Sam & Max: Freelance Police – A “hyperkinetic rabbit thing” whose rictus grin has entertained me more times than I can count.

Binky from Life Is Hell – The world may have The Simpsons, but Groening gave me Life In Hell and I’m all the better for it.

Perhaps it was the demand of the delivery schedule, the smell of the dye, the taste of one too many black jelly beans. Maybe it was the increasing competition from Passover. Who can say?

But, this we know. Thursday, sometime around noon EST, the Easter Bunny went insane.

First it was the tainted peeps, poisoned marshmallow treats that put over five thousand kids in the hospital in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Later, it was the exploding multi-colored eggs that wreaked such destructive havoc on so many towns and cities across our land. Then, millions watched transfixed as the beloved holiday icon led police on a three-state car chase, a pursuit televised live over CNN, until the Easter Bunny’s Porsche 911 GT3 did a Thelma & Louise into the Grand Canyon.

Along the way there were signs: paranoid ramblings about the military industrial complex at mall photo ops, chocolate rabbits with their hearts eaten out delivered anonymously to supermodel Gisele Bündchen, excerpts from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto painted onto eggs and Easter baskets lined with aluminum foil to “keep them from reading my thoughts.”

Oh, to be sure, the breakdown didn’t come as a complete surprise to those who study such things. Dr. Vladislav Konnicher, author of Holiday Insight, notes “holiday icons (such as the Easter Bunny) are fraught with the burden of perpetuating a myth. The onerous task that is implicit in this endeavor can bring even the strongest to their knees. To illustrate this truism, we need only consider the now-infamous Great Pumpkin killings of ‘75.”

Still, a nation mourns, a populace grieves and millions wonder about the implications, about the latent potential of another legendary figure losing it and taking down the established norms. Could we survive an onslaught by the likes of such powerful forces as Santa Claus or Baby New Year? I think not.

So be warned. Be vigilant. Be smart. Know the truth about those you celebrate and honor.

Trust no one. (At the very least, no one who sneaks into your house early in the morning to leave unwrapped confections and easily-spoilt, boiled foodstuffs.)

Gotta bone to pick with my therapist. “Breakthrough” my arse! Repressed memories are repressed for a reason! I mean, hey, if I had wanted to remember that overnight camping trip when I was a Webelo scout I would have. I shoved it back into the deep recesses of my hippocampus for a reason!

But now it’s out in the open, basking in the cold light of day, so I might as well own up to it. Yes, I killed a kid because he wouldn’t let go of my Eggo. And, no, that’s not a euphemism. He actually had the nerve to grab by Eggo waffle as it popped out of the toaster, just like in the damn commercials. I warned him not to, but he thought it was funny. Well, who’s laughing now, Crandall? WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?!

See. It’s crap like that you just got to repress or it’ll make you batty.